Since the thread I did earlier in the year where I salvaged and bought a number of Systempro parts over the last 18 months and assembled them in a modified Zenith case, I have moved to a new city with a new job and found this: -

Quite incredible after putting in all the time and energy into making a modified Systempro... and then goes the universe and puts one right in front of me!

It was not in this condition when I received it of course, and with getting lucky with the weather over the weekend that I took her home... I went ahead and stripped out the 486 insides and gave her a good clean. She was loaded inside with all sorts of goodies... full complement of memory, original Connor HD's, EISA graphics card.

Still, with all the spares I have floating about... I of course made her into another 386 to play alongside her little sister. Will be bringing one of the girls back down to where i'm working... i'm in a new city, so it'll be good to have some computer company!

More to follow...

It's 18/09/16 and time for an update…

Since writing last I’ve managed to escape from work long enough to play with, and conduct some tests. I have also taken some memory from a Deskpro I have and upgraded the system to 80MB DRAM (10 x 8MB sticks) all 80ns.

I have a couple of faster sticks shown below which I have swapped over into the Deskpro, there is little point in having only 2 or 3 (60ns / 70ns) sticks being faster than the rest… it made sense to use them in the Deskpro which has lower memory demands.

As with the modification system I did... I again upgraded the FSB = de-soldering the original 66.66MHz crystal and solder in a new DIL socket so that crystals can be interchangeable depending on system reqs. In this case, I have inserted an 80MHz crystal to bring the FSB up to 40MHz.

So, the tests. Before I go on I should say that the normal benchmark software most folk here on Vogons use do not work unfortunately under Windows NT 3.1, only DOS. Multiprocessor performance is only possible under a supporting OS which DOS is not. It is because of this that the DOS benchmark tools will only see and perform against one of the 386 CPU’s. If anyone can recommend any Windows benchmarks that are likely to run under NT 3.1… I’m all ears.

The results from the short lived tests using a 100MHz oscillator to give a 50MHz FSB are below; -

Back in goes the 80MHz oscillator...

...

Last edited by 386_junkie on 2017-6-03 @ 14:06, edited 31 times in total.

what cpu config you have on the cpu riser? What about the ram too? I think it was meant to run netware 3 or maybe sunos ? It was very interesting to document myself about that computer, I did not knew such things did exist. Well, it's kind of the ancestor to a dell gxpro200.

I love those old Compaq servers and envy you Got myself a Prosiginia 500 with a 486 dx33 and of course its fully EISA. Had anotherone many years ago that i put a 486 dx4 100 in, but regretfully i recycled it.

BSA Starfire wrote:That is a fantastic looking machine! Looks really impressive. Good luck with the new job and city.

Thanks. Really pleased I found her... still having to pinch myself to believe she's actually here. I brought her down with me with a bunch of other stuff moving in over last weekend.

The new job has been very demanding... travelling all over England from Liverpool, Sheffield and this week Birmingham. Though now she is my sole flatmate, we will spend more time together!

How did you get on with your IBM 386? Did you retrofit / customise a case for it?

GL1zdA wrote:Great job! Do you know what is the purpose of all these small slots on the motherboard?

Thanks, there's much more to come... I hope to share all my findings with those who are interested. On the 386 motherboard, the first two slots are for CPU's / cache, the next two slots are proprietary interfacing for the DRAM cards both system and expansion, and the rest are all EISA. The whole system including the expansion slots (EISA and proprietary) are all 32-bit.

ElBrunzy wrote:what cpu config you have on the cpu riser? What about the ram too? I think it was meant to run netware 3 or maybe sunos ? It was very interesting to document myself about that computer, I did not knew such things did exist. Well, it's kind of the ancestor to a dell gxpro200.

Memory is proprietary and is limited in terms of upgrading, but the maximum the system will take is 12 x 8MB = 96MB DRAM in total. I already have Windows NT 3.1 on the first Systempro I built and will be installing it on this system later today if not tomorrow, finally getting a chance to be productive with the project. Not sure of other OS's, though I have read about Netware and is something I would be willing to try also.

Dell Gxpro200, what type of system is this? Is this a server?

Scraphoarder wrote:I love those old Compaq servers and envy you Got myself a Prosiginia 500 with a 486 dx33 and of course its fully EISA. Had anotherone many years ago that i put a 486 dx4 100 in, but regretfully i recycled it.

Thanks, if it makes you feel better I will share her with you online and everything I do test wise. Your Prosignia sounds awesome... quite fast I would imagine. There have been times in the past where i've recycled something and regretted it years later... never again! Hoarder to the grave

chinny22 wrote:Looks like the Systempro gods were pleased with your work before and have rewarded you Should be fun messing round with old OS's getting the 2 talking to each other

Yea, the universe works in mysterious ways. Two Systempro's talking to each other... now there's a thought!